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As usual, a pleasure baking for your family celebrations Vee! You chose this delicious rich chocolate cake with Amarula buttercream for your mom’s 80th Birthday. I love that you chose the cream flowers as they contrasted so beautifully against the combed chocolate buttercream. Espresso mini meringues and chocolate balls, cream fondant rope detail and an embossed cream cake board completed the cake for this occasion.

Thanks Teigh and Carmen for my birthday voucher from Hostess Pro . I was so chuffed to be able to get this rope mould (among others) to add to my collection, it is always fun to have something different to finish off my cakes. Vanessa has such a wonderful selection to choose from so my just have to take another drive out to her shop in Pretoria!

Sweet words of thank from Vee: “Darling Lisa, thank you so much for the absolutely beautiful, delish cake. Everyone commented on it – it was such a great hit. You are a star.”

“A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit.” – John Milton

Birthe, at 80, is the master spirit of a rich, beautiful and adventurous life and her book cake for her 80th Birthday had to portray this. It was wonderful that Susan spent the time with me to make sure that I knew all about her mom before I designed the cake. Alicia, her granddaughter, speaks of her grandmother with such love and gentleness that it wasn’t difficult to take both their ideas and include them in the cake. The creative result of a few hours of sweet brainstorming was a cake that would be 3 books showing Birthe’s passion in life.

Birthe is a Danish name and Denmark and the theme of travel was a perfect book to start with as Birthe was born and spent many years in Demark before embarking on many other exciting travel journeys. This book titled A Beautiful Journey, was a delicious red velvet cake, ganached and covered in an elegant cream sugar paste binding. I included the traditional colourful Danish houses, bicycle, the Copenhagen round tower, Danish flag and postcards. Of course no journey would be complete without a carrier bag and luggage tag which made Birthe’s travel book sassy and unique to her.

While not travelling, Birthe’s other passions in life are gardening and sewing and knitting. Beautiful handpainted serviettes were the inspiration for the blue and yellow daisies on The Garden Grower book. The blue embossed book cover portrays the life of a gardener with the sugar fence, wheelbarrrow, bird house, watering can, gloves and of course loads of blossoms. What a beautiful gift Birthe has in being so passionate about nature and her garden and I am sure she has left all the birds singing with delight in her beautiful gardens. Cutting this cake revealed layers of tasty passion fruit and creamy buttercream to complement the theme.

Creative Style applies to all Birthe’s accomplishments and was a perfect title for the 3rd book. When you are 80, you remember a dress pattern costing only 35c! This edible print of a Simplicity pattern from 1965 was a delight in design and colour for this book cover. All the tools a dressmaker requires I added in sugar of course and the fabric and lace are edible additions from Crystal Candy. It was so exciting to have my cake part of such a memorable celebration, with so much detail in the planning and in a beautifully decorated restaurant. Even more special was Birthe and her family and friends’ reaction to many hours spent portraying her character in sugar. Wishing you a wonderful year ahead Birthe and many more spent with such a loving family!

When you turn 80 and when you are celebrating with your partner you deserve a cake with a very long name, hence this Scottish, Zimbabwean, South African 80th Birthday Cake! I created this custom made cake for Mac and Sheenah for their joint 80th celebration and was given free reign by Shaunagh, their daughter-in-law, as long as it equally represented the 3 beautiful countries this special couple had lived in. On chatting with Shaunagh, we came up with the national flower for each country and Shaunagh then asked me to also include individual sugar work for both Mac and Sheenah. Sheenah’s passion is painting and I printed four of Sheenah’s beautiful paintings onto edible paper and created small canvases for the one side of the cake. Paint splashes below her paintings and the Protea for South Africa completed the painting theme for Sheenah.

Mac is a keen golfer and Shaunagh asked me to include a golf bag for him as well as bank notes as he was a banker. I am sure Mac has played many awesome games in all the countries they have lived and I thought it appropriate to add the golf bag to the Scottish-Thistle side of the cake where I included the part of the golf course on the board with its customary bunker and golf balls. The edible bank notes I added were South African rands and then on the Flame Lily side, the really old Zimbabwean 1 and 10 dollar bills, now quite extinct! The Brown Family Tartan I draped over the cake completed the overall look and I was so pleased to hear that everyone not only loved the design and detail of the cake but the delicious Passion Fruit Flavour and Vanilla Lime Buttercream especially chosen for this awesome couple. Congratulations Mac and Sheenah on celebrating your 80th Birthdays together and on loving each other, bringing up a wonderful family and sharing so many adventures in these 3 beautiful countries!